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A new study has suggested that the number of gay voters who chose Obama in the recent US election could have been enough to give him the winning advantage over rival Mitt Romey.

The study, conducted by Gary J Gates of the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, showed that 5% of voters identified as gay, lesbian or bisexual, reported the New York Times.

It went on to show that Barack Obama received 76% of the vote from people identifying as gay, lesbian or bisexual, compared to only 22% of that group voting for Mitt Romney.

This advantage could have been enough to tip the vote in favour of President Obama, given that he and Mitt Romney received almost an equal percentage of votes from people identifying as straight, at 49%.

Another recent study actually suggested that Mitt Romney had received a majority of votes from straight residents of Ohio and Florida, both swing states.

The emphasis was previously put on who Latino, or voters from other minority groups chose in the election, but this new study suggests that support from LGBT voters weighs in just as importantly, despite not being featured as much in post-election analysis.

The study read:

“When LGBT voters are added to electorate, Obama moves slightly ahead of Romney (47% to 45%). These findings suggest that the highly Democratic vote of the LGBT population could be enough to swing a very close election toward Obama.”

The results of this research also suggested that a slightly less than average number of LGBT people were registered to vote, 74%, compared to 80% of straight voters.

The survery, conducted between June and September 2012, also said that LGBT people were more likely to approve of Obama. It read:

“68% of LGBT Americans approved of the way Obama was doing his job as president during the June-September survey period, compared with 45% of non-LGBT Americans. 28% of LGBT Americans disapproved of the way Obama was doing his job, compared with 51% of non-LGBT individuals.”

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